In the wake of the news.

Tpc Puts Whatshisname In Spotlight

March 30, 1996|By Bob Verdi.

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. — Here we go again. Somebody named Tommy Tolles shot a 64 Friday to lead the $3.5 million Players Championship after two rounds.

He lives somewhere in North Carolina called Flat Rock, a town that holds 900 people, one gas station and no traffic lights. Flat Rock doesn't even have sports talk radio. With $3.5 million, you could probably buy Flat Rock and dome it.

"Nice place," says Tolles, "if you want to be invisible."

Good old whatshisname has picked the right sport too. Golf fits Tolles to a tee. If he should hang on here for 36 more holes, he would punctuate one of the most amazingly anonymous months in PGA Tour history not with an exclamation point, but a question mark.

Who are these guys and why is this happening? A victory by Tolles would be the fourth in succession by a player who has never before won a professional tournament.

Tim Herron, the round and engaging Minnesotan, started this rage in early March with his first triumph, the Honda Classic. Then Paul Goydos did his thing at Bay Hill. Then the tour went to New Orleans for a week, but the plot didn't change. Scott McCarron walked off with a trophy and needed all sorts of introductions.

Now, Tommy Tolles is shooting for the four-peat. Are we talking Cubs in the World Series? Not quite. Even this type of phenomenon occurs more often than every half century. Still, such apparent upheaval is significant.

"It's good for the game that some of the kids are winning," says Phil Mickelson.

He has won seven events, and at age 25 is younger than all of the aforementioned.

But Mickelson's point is germane. While virtually every other sport grapples with dilution on account of expansion, golf's talent level is deep and getting deeper. Bright-eyed prodigies used to arrive in trickles. Now, they come in waves.

They also feed off each other. Last Sunday, Tolles was in the last group for the homestretch at New Orleans. He bombed with a 76, but had a clear view of McCarron, who won by five strokes. McCarron, in turn, said he was encouraged the week before by watching Goydos, who developed a serious case of sudden confidence after looking at what Herron did.

Of the three surprise victors, only Goydos, 31, has been on tour for any length of time. But you wouldn't know it by the way these lads treat pressure. They seem utterly at ease over even the most difficult shot, and rubbing elbows with legends doesn't cause parched throats, either.

"These young guys don't have a lot of fear," says Jay Haas, 42. "I wish they were more scared. But you can see it on the practice range. More great swings from players you don't recognize than I ever remember."

Greg Norman peeked at the New Orleans tournament on TV and noted how McCarron carried himself. Like he belonged and was in charge of his game, said Norman. The Shark, by the way, left for home Friday night. He missed his second straight cut for the first time since he joined the PGA Tour in 1979.

That's astounding in itself, and it fuels another theory about why there are all these first-time winners: The veterans are richer than ever and therefore not quite as hungry.

"Don't believe it," Haas says. "A guy like Greg has all the money he'll ever need, but he still plays to win."

During the summer of 1991, there was a siege of four consecutive first-time winners. Russ Cochran led off by beating Norman and Fred Couples at the Western Open.

Tolles is 11-under on a normally tough track softened by rain, and he leads by only a couple strokes.

Haas, Couples, Mark Calcavecchia, Fuzzy Zoeller, Corey Pavin, John Daly, Chip Beck. They're all on the big board. But so are Justin Leonard and David Duval, neither of whom has won yet, both of whom will soon.

In golf, you don't have to be a household name to own the town, even if it's only Flat Rock.